"It 's a purty time of life fur you to be a-talkin' about growin'. You 're jest like an old tree that has fell in a damp place an' sen's out a few shoots on the trunk. It thinks it 's a-growin' too, but them shoots
soon wither, an' the tree rots; that 's what it does."
"But before it rotted, it growed all that was in it to grow, did n't it. Well, that 's all anybody kin do, tree or human bein'." He paused for a moment. "I 'ain't got all my growth yit."
"You kin git the rest in the garden of the Lord."
"It ain't good to change soil on some plants too soon. I ain't ready to be set out." He went on reading:
"'I 'm not so narrow as I was at home. I don't think so many things are wrong as I used to. It is good to be like other people sometimes, and not to feel yoreself apart from all the rest of humanity. I am growing to act more like the people I meet, and so I am—'" the old man's hand trembled, and he moved the paper nearer to his eyes—"'I—' What 's this he says? 'I am learning to dance.'"
"There!" his wife shot forth triumphantly. "What did I tell you? Going to a Congregational church an' learnin' to dance, an' he not a year ago a preacher of the gospel."
Eliphalet was silent for some time: his
eyes looked far out into space. Then he picked up the paper that had fluttered from his hand, and a smile flitted over his face.
"Well, I don't know," he said. "Freddie 's young, an' they 's worse things in the world than dancin'."